Assessment:
1
the systematic collection, review, and use of information about educational
programs undertaken for the purpose of improving student learning and
development.
Assessment for accountability:
2
assessment of some unit (could be a department, program or entire
institution) to satisfy stakeholders external to the unit itself.
Results are often compared across units. Always summative. Example:
to retain state approval, the achievement of a 90 percent pass rate
or better on teacher certification tests by graduates of a school
of education.
Assessment for improvement:
3
assessment that feeds directly, and often immediately, back into revising
the course, program or institution to improve student learning results.
Can be formative or summative (see "formative assessment" for an example).
Benchmark:4
a description or example of candidate or institutional performance
that serves as a standard of comparison for evaluation or judging
quality.
Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive objectives:5
six levels arranged in order of increasing complexity (1=low, 6=high):
1. Knowledge: recalling or remembering information without
necessarily understanding it. Includes behaviors such as describing,
listing, identifying, and labeling.
2. Comprehension: understanding learned material and includes
behaviors such as explaining, discussing, and interpreting.
3. Application: the ability to put ideas and concepts
to work in solving problems. It includes behaviors such as demonstrating,
showing, and making use of information.
4. Analysis: breaking down information into its component
parts to see interrelationships and ideas. Related behaviors include
differentiating, comparing, and categorizing.
5. Synthesis: the ability to put parts together to form
something original. It involves using creativity to compose or
design something new.
6. Evaluation: judging the value of evidence based on
definite criteria. Behaviors related to evaluation include: concluding,
criticizing, prioritizing, and recommending.
Course-embedded assessment:6
an assessment that allows faculty to evaluate and improve approaches
to instruction and course design in a way that is built into and a
natural part of the teaching-learning process. Often used for assessment
purposes classroom assignments that are evaluated to assign students
a grade. Can assess individual student performance or aggregate the
information to provide information about the course or program; can
be formative or summative, quantitative or qualitative. Example: as
part of a course, expecting each senior to complete a research paper
that is graded for content and style, but is also assessed for advanced
ability to locate and evaluate Web-based information (as part of a
college-wide outcome to demonstrate information literacy).
Direct assessment of learning:7
gathers evidence, based on student performance, which demonstrates
the learning itself. Can be value added, related to standards, qualitative
or quantitative, embedded or not, using local or external criteria.
Examples: most classroom testing for grades is direct assessment (in
this instance within the confines of a course), as is the evaluation
of a research paper in terms of the discriminating use of sources.
The latter example could assess learning accomplished within a single
course or, if part of a senior requirement, could also assess cumulative
learning.
Direct measures of learning:8
students (learners) display knowledge and skills as they respond directly
to the instrument itself. Examples include: objective tests, essays,
presentations, and classroom assignments.
External assessment:9
use of criteria (rubric) or an instrument developed by an individual
or organization external to the one being assessed. Usually summative,
quantitative, and often high-stakes (seebelow). Example: GRE exams.
Formative assessment:10
the gathering of information about student learning-during the progression
of a course or program and usually repeatedly-to improve the learning
of those students. Example: reading the first lab reports of a class
to assess whether some or all students in the group need a lesson
on how to make them succinct and informative.
Goals for learning:11
goals are used to express intended results in general terms. The term
goals are used to describe broad learning concepts, for example: clear
communication, problem solving, and ethical awareness.
"High stakes" use
of assessment:12 the decision
to use the results of assessment to set a hurdle that needs to be
cleared for completing a program of study, receiving certification,
or moving to the next level. Most often the assessment so used is
externally developed, based on set standards, carried out in a secure
testing situation, and administered at a single point in time. Examples:
at the secondary school level, statewide exams required for graduation;
in postgraduate education, the bar exam.
Indirect assessment of learning:13
gathers student reflection about the learning or secondary evidence
of its existence. Example: a student survey about whether a course
or program helped develop a greater sensitivity to issues of diversity,
exit surveys, student interviews (e.g. graduating seniors), and alumni
surveys.
Individual assessment:14
uses the individual student, and his/her learning, as the level of
analysis. Can be quantitative or qualitative, formative or summative,
standards-based or value added, and used for improvement. Would need
to be aggregated if used for accountability purposes. Examples: improvement
in student knowledge of a subject during a single course; improved
ability of a student to build cogent arguments over the course of
an undergraduate career.
Institutional assessment:15
uses the institution as the level of analysis. Can be quantitative
or qualitative, formative or summative, standards-based or value added,
and used for improvement or for accountability. Ideally institution-wide
goals and objectives would serve as a basis for the assessment. Example:
how well students across the institution can work in multi-cultural
teams as sophomores and seniors.
Institutional effectiveness:16
the measure of what an institution actually achieves.
Learning objectives:17
objectives are used to express intended results in precise terms.
Further, objectives are more specific as to what needs to be assessed
and thus are a more accurate guide in selecting appropriate assessment
tools. Example: Graduates in Speech Communication will be able to
interpret non-verbal behavior and to support arguments with credible
evidence.
Learning outcomes (Outcome Behaviors):18
observable behaviors or actions on the part of students that demonstrate
that the intended learning objective has occurred.
Local assessment:19
means and methods that are developed by an institution's faculty based
on their teaching approaches, students, and learning goals. Can fall
into any of the definitions here except "external assessment," for
which is it an antonym. Example: one college's use of nursing students'
writing about the "universal precautions" at multiple points in their
undergraduate program as an assessment of the development of writing
competence.
Measurements or methods of assessment:20
design of strategies, techniques and instruments for collecting feedback
data that evidence the extent to which students demonstrate the desired
behaviors.
Modifications:21
recommended actions or changes for improving student learning, service
delivery, etc. that respond to the respective measurement evaluation.
Performance assessment:22
the process of using student activities or products, as opposed to
tests or surveys, to evaluate students’ knowledge, skills, and development.
Methods include: essays, oral presentations, exhibitions, performances,
and demonstrations. Examples include: reflective journals (daily/weekly);
capstone experiences; demonstrations of student work (e.g. acting
in a theatrical production, playing an instrument, observing a student
teaching a lesson); products of student work (e.g. Art students produce
paintings/drawings, Journalism students write newspaper articles,
Geography students create maps, Computer Science students generate
computer programs, etc.).
Portfolio:23
an accumulation of evidence about individual proficiencies, especially
in relation to learning standards. Examples include but are not limited
to: Samples of student work including projects, journals, exams, papers,
presentations, videos of speeches and performances.
Program assessment:24
uses the department or program as the level of analysis. Can be quantitative
or qualitative, formative or summative, standards-based or value added,
and used for improvement or for accountability. Ideally program goals
and objectives would serve as a basis for the assessment. Example:
how sophisticated a close reading of texts senior English majors can
accomplish (if used to determine value added, would be compared to
the ability of newly declared majors).
Qualitative assessment:25
collects data that does not lend itself to quantitative methods but
rather to interpretive criteria or descriptions rather than numbers.
Examples: Ethnographic field studies, logs, journals, participant
observation, and open-ended questions on interviews and surveys.
Quantitative assessment:26
collects data that can be analyzed using quantitative methods, such
as numerical scores or ratings. Examples: Surveys, Inventories, Institutional/departmental
data, departmental/course-level exams (locally constructed, standardized,
etc.).
Reliability:27
reliable measures are measures that produce consistent responses over
time.
Rubrics (Scoring Guidelines):28
written and shared for judging performance that indicate the qualities
by which levels of performance can be differentiated, and that anchor
judgments about the degree of achievement.
Standards:29
sets a level of accomplishment all students are expected to meet or
exceed. Standards do not necessarily imply high quality learning;
sometimes the level is a lowest common denominator. Nor do they imply
complete standardization in a program; a common minimum level could
be achieved by multiple pathways and demonstrated in various ways.
Examples: carrying on a conversation about daily activities in a foreign
language using correct grammar and comprehensible pronunciation; achieving
a certain score on a standardized test.
Summative assessment:30
the gathering of information at the conclusion of a course, program,
or undergraduate career to improve learning or to meet accountability
demands. When used for improvement, impacts the next cohort of students
taking the course or program. Examples: examining student final exams
in a course to see if certain specific areas of the curriculum were
understood less well than others; analyzing senior projects for the
ability to integrate across disciplines.
Student outcomes assessment:31
the act of assembling, analyzing and using both quantitative and qualitative
evidence of teaching and learning outcomes, in order to examine their
congruence with stated purposes and educational objectives and to
provide meaningful feedback that will stimulate self-renewal.
Teaching-improvement loop:32
teaching, learning, outcomes assessment, and improvement may be defined
as elements of a feedback loop in which teaching influences learning,
and the assessment of learning outcomes is used to improve teaching
and learning.
Validity:33
as applied to a test refers to a judgment concerning how well a test
does in fact measure what it purports to measure.
Value added:34
the increase in learning that occurs during a course, program, or
undergraduate education. Can either focus on the individual student
(how much better a student can write, for example, at the end than
at the beginning) or on a cohort of students (whether senior papers
demonstrate more sophisticated writing skills-in the aggregate-than
freshmen papers). Requires a baseline measurement for comparison.
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